Christmas 2013 - Young

We said our goodbye's to Nate's dad and Martha as they head to Colorado for the winter soon after we celebrate Christmas.  We headed across town to Nate's mom's and step-dad's for our 3rd and final weekend party.  Here we had two new family members.  Our step-nieces both had baby boys 10 weeks apart this summer.  Needless to say, Morgan was in heaven meeting Matthew and Broty for the first time.  I only got a picture with Matthew.

 Nonny Mary had a couple of projects planned for the kids to help her decorate the tree she had cut down from across the road.  First up was stringing popcorn and cranberries.

 2 elves in a pod

 2nd project was a paper chain

 Papa & Nonny with 5 grands and 2 greats

 hanging the paper chain

 1 sleepy elf

 the sunset picture I took from the chair inside the house

It was nice splitting up the celebrations this year.  The only negative part was the girls still had one week of school to go before break once we got home.  And when they fall asleep half way into the trip, it makes for a short night and a long morning.  Merry Christmas Metzger & Young Families!

Christmas 2013 - Metzger Great

Saturday we headed down the road to Grandpa and Grandma Metzger's house for a first.  The first Christmas without either of them there.  Grandpa passed away back in October and Grandma isn't up to leaving the nursing home.  Grandpa started the tradition of Santa Claus coming to hand out the gifts to the kids of all ages - including adults.  As usual, he sat the kids down to discuss the details of the real meaning of Christmas and this year, added some comments about Great-Grandpa celebrating in heaven.

 Santa and the gang

 reindeer antlers

 these 3 had all kinds of fun with Aunt Jill in this chair

The adults had some good laughs over the white elephant gift exchange and I have already donated my gifts to the mission.  We did a quick Skype with Nate's cousin Mark and his wife Christina in California.  They could not join us this year because their first baby Ethan arrived the week before.  Although different, still an enjoyable time for the Metzgers, Greenwoods and the Whites.

Christmas 2013 - Metzger

We departed Normal just as the snow started falling on Friday, December 13th to celebrate with Nate's family in Greenville.  It was his family's turn for celebrating on Christmas but they opted to do so early this year which is the reason we were able to be home on the 24th & 25th.  Our first of three celebrations was with Nate's dad, stepmom and his brother's family.

 Here are all five of the kids opening the big gift from Papa and Nonny.

 You may have heard the screaming through the shattered windows wherever you were...

 Kindle Fires for everyone.  Yeah, thanks Papa & Nonny!
They had framed and hung a couple of art pieces.  This was some sort of string creation Nate made back in the day.  I thought it was pretty cool.

This beautiful drawing created with oil pastels was made by Shelby.  They hung it in Nate's old bedroom.

It looks much better in person without that line going through it from the camera.  But you get the picture (ha ha).
As is typical, the little people stayed up late to play and too soon we would be off to Christmas 2 of 3....

Tree Decorating Christmas 2013 - Morgan

Well, you just read the post about my mom and her fall.  Since she was able to stay here to start her recovery process, Morgan was able to decorate her tree with a little help from Nonny.  And when she needed to get up and move around and stretch a bit, they even got some baking done.

first baking project was popcorn balls...yum!!!

 tree decorating time

 there's that tongue!

 the finished project

with the grinch since she had one on her shirt too

 next baking project was cookies

Morgan sorted these out and shared them with our neighbors.  We were thankful Nonny got to feeling good enough to be up and at it for small bits at a time so Morgan could get her tree up and do some baking which she loves to do!

I Need Help!!!

I went to my BSF meeting on Saturday morning.  While just getting started into the discussion part of our training, my mom called me.  This was around 6:45 am.  I thought something might be wrong based on the time and that she was calling when she knew I was in the meeting.  The only problem was, I was not in a position to answer or even excuse myself from the room to answer.  3 out of 4 monthly meetings I probably would have been, but not this week.  So I had to sit there for 45 minutes wondering what she needed until this portion of the meeting wrapped up and I could check my voice mail.  Once I did, I got a message from her that was hard to understand.  I thought she said she needed help.  So I called her phone and Ashley answered.  She said mom had called because she had a little accident on our stairs.  She had also sent Ashley a few texts because she was working.  She didn't get those right away either.  I wished she had sent me a text rather than called because I would have been able to see I needed to leave the meeting.  Oh well.  Her phone is junk and is a pain to even text with on a good day so in the position she was in, she couldn't do any more texting.
This is what happened:  she got up about 6:15 for the day and prepared to go downstairs.  She was wearing fuzzy socks to help keep her feet warm.  At home she usually has shoes on or slippers with good soles for extra warmth.  Our house is 15 to 20 degrees warmer than theirs so she didn't have anything over the socks while upstairs on the carpet.  When she got to the top stair to head down, her feet basically went out from under her like hitting a sheet of black ice.  She hit her upper back on the edge of the step really hard and she heard something crack or snap.  She thinks she passed out a bit before coming to and somehow getting to the bottom of the steps.  Unfortunately Nate, Shelby and Morgan were all still sleeping.  If I'd been home I would have heard her fall since our bedroom door is at the top of the stairs.  And I hear everything in my sleep.  Nate doesn't hear anything as well as has a sound machine in his ear.  Shelby also sleeps with a sound machine and Morgan, although in my bed (as usual) doesn't hear well on top of Nate's sound machine noise.  So, she laid at the bottom of the stairs for a good hour before Morgan finally hear her calling for help.  She woke Nate up and they found Nonny in a pile at the bottom of the stairs.  She would not let them call 911 until Ashley was able to get there from work.  When I called at 7:30 the EMT's where there loading her up.  I left my meeting and met them at the ER.

 heading out

I am still trying to picture 5 EMT's inside my front entry but they did it!

 It was probably 7:45 when I walked into that ER room.  We got her checked in and she was finally taken back for a scan to see what was up.  She returned and eventually agreed to an IV since it didn't appear she would be leaving any time soon.  She tried to rest, made it through some more poking for blood withdrawals, and tried to rest some more.  Finally, a resident of the neuro department came into our little ER cell to say it appeared she had a compressed fracture of her T-7 vertebrae.  This was not the news she was waiting to hear and was pretty discouraged.  The resident had been in contact with his boss the head neurosurgeon.  He was able to send a picture of her scan to him via phone (crazy) and he gave his 2 cents (I mean thousands of dollars) worth.  They explained you basically have two options:  surgery or heal on your own.  After 6 months to a year, anyone who has this injury won't show any signs of it.  Up to that point, you have to consider what quality of life you want.  Since she is self-employed and uses her body every day, surgery seemed the only way to go.  While waiting in the ER room, I asked Jamie if he would host our upcoming family Christmas since there would be no way mom could get her house ready and do everything that is involved with hosting a holiday.  We also decided she might as well stay put here in Normal to recover a bit before going home since she couldn't work any way.  That way I could help her out and my dad didn't have to worry about what she was doing while he was at work.  Finally around 4:15 she was relocated to a sweet room in the brand new wing of the hospital.  The head surgeon came by and went over the plan for surgery on Sunday morning.

a small collection of arm bands to keep track of her!

Nate brought the girls over to visit and then we settled in for the night.  They had a nice and comfy couch there in the room for me.  Ashley returned after another night of work just as she was heading back for surgery at 8am. The whole process took less than an hour or so.  They use a big needle, just like the one used in the bone marrow transplant she did for Uncle Nick.  While watching on an X-Ray, the surgeon blows the vertebrae up with a balloon and fills it with cement.  This vertebrae works with your breathing so she actually helped each time she took a breath.  When she inhaled the vertebrae opened up and the doctor inserted the cement.  When she exhaled it deflated so the doc would wait until she inhaled again.  He said he had never seen that before!  According to the surgeon, this surgery is one of their favorites to do.  It is very common in car accidents.  She returned to her room and rested some more, ate some awful hospital food and I was able to take her home around 3:00 that afternoon to Morgan's delight.  She was ready for Nonny to come back!
She stayed for the next week.  She had orders to not use the stairs on her own.  She stayed in the spare bedroom like a good girl every morning until I got up to help her get situated down stairs.  She was not allowed to walk without shoes or the slippers over those fuzzy socks.  And she choked down pain meds as needed.  She is not a needle or pill lover!  We left her here alone with Ashley checking in on her between work hours and sleep and went to Greenville for Nate's family Christmas celebrations.  She ended up driving herself home on Tuesday morning, 1 week and 4 days after her injury.  Since being home, she has returned to work and just has to do what she can regarding her pain.  My aunt Patsy who is a massage therapist worked on her and said she had raised ribs and whiplash on the right side of her neck.  So she has started seeing a chiropractor 3 times a week who told her she was probably hurt a lot more than anyone ever realized!  I think she still has a long road ahead, but can't imagine where she'd be without having done the surgery.

Tree Decorating with Nonny Moe 2013 - Shelby

Still playing catch up.  Backing up to the first weekend in December.  My mom came to town on Friday night for her annual trip help the girls decorate their trees, do some baking with the baker, and get some shopping done.  On Friday night I had a Christmas tea at my church I headed out to just as she was pulling up.  While I was gone Shelby got her tree decorated.  I wasn't here to take any pictures so I got one of the completed project.

We went to bed Friday night with 1 completed tree with plans to decorate Morgan's on Saturday morning while I was at my early BSF meeting so we could shop/bake the rest of the day.  I will end this post and continue the weekend in two more posts of their own.

Fall Soccer

Behind.  Again.  Fall soccer wrapped up about a month ago.  Shelby continued her love/hate relationship with the sport.  If she put more effort into it, she could be really good.  Her coach told her that she has the skills, she just needs to use them.

Shelby & Emily

 she hates this picture because of her blowing hair

just proves that the wind blows all the time out there

 The Dragons

Here's to hoping now that the weather is better for spring soccer than it was this year!  Go Dragons!